The Second Rumpole Omnibus

by John Mortimer

  ‘Mr Spong,’ he started, in his smoothest voice. ‘You knocked up a Mr Newbold in one of the cottages?’

  ‘Yes, I did. I banged on the door, and he put his head out of the window.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I asked him to phone the police and tell them that there was a woman in trouble with a boat.’

  ‘You didn’t tell him anything else you’d seen?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘And having told Mr Newbold that a woman was in trouble with a boat, you got on your bicycle and rode away?’

  ‘Yes. That is correct.’

  Not a bad exchange, for Featherstone. I whispered my instructions to him.

  ‘Leave it there.’

  ‘What?’ Guthrie whispered back, turning his head away from the witness.

  ‘Don’t give him a chance to explain! Comment on it later, to the jury.’

  The trouble with leaders is that they won’t take their learned junior’s advice. Featherstone couldn’t resist trying to gild the lily.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell Mr Newbold or the police the whole story? About the struggle in the boat and so on?’

  ‘Well, sir. I thought I saw a Mediterranean shearwater, which would be extremely interesting so far out of its territory. I got on my bike to follow its flight, but when I spotted it later from the cliffs, it was a great shearwater, which is interesting enough.’

  I sighed with resignation. From a dedicated birdwatcher, the answer was totally convincing.

  ‘Mr Spong. Did you think sighting shearwaters was more important than a possible murder?’ Featherstone asked with carefully simulated anger and incredulity.

  ‘Yes, of course I did.’

  Of course he did. The jury could recognize a man dedicated to his single interest in life.

  ‘In fact, you only came forward when Mr Chad Bateman arrived from New Zealand and advertised for you?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘How much did he get paid?’ I whispered the question ferociously to my leader’s back.

  ‘Did you get paid for your information?’ At least Featherstone obeyed orders, sometimes.

  ‘I was given no money.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Spong.’ My leader folded his silk gown about him and prepared to subside, but I stimulated him into a final question.

  ‘Don’t sit down! Ask him what he got apart from money,’ I whispered, and my leader uncoiled himself. After a pause which made it look as though he’d thought of the question himself he said,

  ‘Just one thing. Did you get rewarded in any other way?’

  ‘I was offered a holiday in New Zealand,’ Spong admitted.

  ‘By the deceased’s brother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you intend to take it?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ And Spong turned to the jury with a look of radiant honesty. ‘There are some extremely interesting birds in New Zealand. But I must make this clear. It hasn’t made the slightest difference to my telling the truth in this Court.’

  I looked at the jury. I knew one thing beyond reasonable doubt. They believed the birdwatcher.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Spong.’ Featherstone was finally able to sit down and turn to me for some whispered reassurance.

  ‘It was a disaster, old darling,’ I told him, but admitted, ‘not entirely your fault.’

  Later, Featherstone had another opportunity to practise the art of cross-examination on the police officer in charge of the case.

  ‘Inspector Salter. The body of Barney Bateman was never recovered?’ he asked. Well, at least it was a safe question, the answer to which was not in dispute.

  ‘No, sir.’ The Inspector, who looked as though he enjoyed fishing from his own small boat, had no trouble in agreeing.

  ‘Is that not an unusual factor, in this somewhat unusual case?’ Featherstone soldiered on, more or less harmlessly.

  ‘Not really, sir.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘There are particularly strong currents off Shenstone, sir. We have warnings put up to swimmers. Unfortunately, there have been many drowning accidents where bodies have never been recovered.’

  ‘Did you say “accidents”, Inspector?’

  ‘Oh Featherstone, my old sweetheart. Don’t try to be too brilliant,’ I whispered, I hoped inaudibly. ‘Just plod, Featherstone. It suits your style far better.’

  ‘We have had bodies lost in accidents, yes, sir,’ Inspector Salter answered carefully. ‘I’m by no means suggesting that this was an accident. In fact, the view of the police is that it was deliberate.’

  The Judge interrupted mercifully to spare Featherstone embarrassment.

  ‘Yes. Thank you, Inspector Salter. I’m sure we all understand what the police are suggesting here.’

  ‘If your Lordship pleases.’ There was another rustle of silk as Featherstone sat. I had warned him. He should plod, just plod, and never attempt brilliance.

  During the luncheon break we went to see our client in the cells.

  ‘Mrs Jason. I’m sure it’s a nerve-racking business, giving evidence on a charge of murder.’ Featherstone was doing his best to prepare our client for the ordeal to come. But Jackie gave him a far too cheerful smile.

  ‘I’ve been in cross-Channel races with Barney. And round Land’s End in a force-nine gale which took away our mast in the pitch dark. I don’t see that Mr Gaunt’s questions are going to frighten me.’

  ‘There’s just one thing.’ I thought I ought to insert a word of warning. ‘I think the jury are going to believe the birdwatcher. It would be nice if we didn’t have to quarrel with too much of his evidence.’

  ‘What do you mean, it would be nice?’ Jackie looked at me impatiently. ‘That man Spong was talking absolute nonsense.’

  ‘Well, for instance, he said that you were standing up in the boat together? Now, what could you have been doing – other than fighting, of course?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Jackie frowned. ‘What could we have been doing?’

  ‘Well, perhaps,’ I made a suggestion, ‘kissing each other goodbye?’

  ‘That’s ridiculous! Why on earth did you say that? Anyway,’ she looked at Featherstone, ‘who’ll be asking me the questions in Court?’

  ‘I shall, Mrs Jason,’ he reassured her, ‘as your leading counsel. Mr Rumpole won’t be asking you any questions at all.’

  Our client looked as if the news came to her as a considerable relief. Featherstone’s questions would be like a gentle following breeze, and Rumpole’s awkward voice would not be heard. However, I had to warn her, and said,

  ‘Gerald Gaunt’s going to ask you some questions for the prosecution as well. You should be prepared for that, otherwise they’re going to strike you like a force-nine gale amidships.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Jason.’ Featherstone poured his well-oiled voice on the choppy waters of our conference. ‘I’m sure you’ll be more than a match for the prosecuting counsel. Now, let’s go through your proof again, shall we?’

  In the course of time, Featherstone steered Jackie through her examination in chief, more or less smoothly. At least he managed to avoid the hidden rocks and shallows, but more by ignoring their existence and hoping for the best than by expert navigation. Finally, he had to sit down and leave her unprotected and without an anchor, to the mercy of such winds as might be drummed up by the cross-examination of our learned friend, Mr Gerald Gaunt, Q.C., who rose, and started off with a gentle courtesy which was deceptive.

  ‘Mrs Jason. Your husband was a swimmer?’

  ‘Barney could swim, yes. The point was,’ Jackie answered confidently, ‘we were too far out to swim ashore.’

  ‘Oh, I quite agree,’ Gaunt smiled at her. ‘And he always said, didn’t he, that it was far safer to cling to the wreckage and wait to be picked up than attempt a long and exhausting swim against the current?’

  ‘Any experienced sailor would tell you that.’ Jackie spoke to him as to a novice yachtsman
.

  ‘And that’s exactly what you did?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jackie admitted.

  ‘Why didn’t your husband?’

  ‘As I told you. He must have been stunned by the boom as we went about.’

  Gaunt nodded and then produced a document from his pile of papers.

  ‘I have here the account which you gave to the insurance company at the time. You said “the accident took place between the eighth and ninth marker buoys of the regatta course”.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Halfway between?’

  ‘About that.’

  ‘With the wind from the quarter it was on that morning, you could have sailed between those two points without going about at all, could you not?’

  The healthy-looking woman in the witness-box seemed somewhat taken aback by his expertise. After a small hesitation she said,

  ‘Perhaps we could.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you?’ Gaunt was no longer smiling.

  ‘Perhaps we’re not all as clever as you, Mr Gaunt. Perhaps Barney made a mistake.’

  ‘Made a mistake?’ Gaunt looked extravagantly puzzled. ‘On a course where he’d raced and won five times?’

  Jackie Jason was proving to be the worst kind of witness. She was over-emphatic, touchy and had treated the question as an insult. I could see the jury starting to lose faith in her defence.

  ‘Anyway, you’ve never been out from Shenstone on the regatta course.’ She raised her voice, making matters a good deal worse. ‘I don’t know what you know about it, Mr Gaunt!’

  ‘Mrs Jason!’ the Judge warned her. ‘Just confine yourself to answering the questions. Mr Gaunt is merely doing his duty with his usual ability.’

  ‘Mrs Jason.’ Gaunt was quiet and courteous again. ‘Did you tell your husband you’d taken out this large life insurance?’

  The jury were looking hard at my client, as she did her best to avoid the question.

  ‘I didn’t tell him the exact amount. I ran our business affairs.’

  ‘Which were in a terrible mess, weren’t they?’

  ‘Not terrible,’ no. She answered cautiously, and our opponent fished out another devastating document.

  ‘I have here the certified accounts for the shop Father Neptune’s Boutique which you ran in Shenstone. Had a petition in bankruptcy been filed by one of your suppliers?’

  ‘You seem to know all about it.’ Again, the answer sounded angry and defensive.

  ‘Oh yes, I do.’ Gaunt assured her, cheerfully. ‘And were the mortgage repayments considerably overdue on your cottage at Shenstone-on-Sea?’

  ‘We only needed a bit of luck to pay off our debts.’

  ‘And the “bit of luck” was your husband’s death, wasn’t it?’

  It was a cruel question, but I knew her answer chilled the hearts of the jury. It came coldly, and after a long pause.

  ‘I suppose it came at the right moment, from the business point of view.’

  ‘I thought that she stood up to that reasonably well.’

  Featherstone and I were removing the fancy dress in the local robing room and he turned to me, once again, for a reassurance that I failed to give.

  ‘It was a disaster,’ I said. ‘Can’t wait to chat. I’m off to London.’

  ‘London?’ Featherstone looked perplexed. ‘We could have had dinner together and discussed my final speech.’

  ‘Before your final speech, we ought to discuss whom we’re going to call as a witness.’

  ‘Witness? Have we got a witness?’

  But I was on my way to the door.

  ‘See you here in the morning. We’ll talk about our witness.’

  I left my puzzled leader and caught an Inter City train. I sat munching an illicit tea-cake as a railway guard, pretending to be an air hostess, came over the intercom, and announced that we were due on the ground at Liverpool Street approximately twenty minutes late, and apologized for the delay. (I waited to be told to fasten my seat belt because of a spot of turbulence around Bishop’s Stortford.) What I was doing was strictly unprofessional. We legal hacks are not supposed to chatter to witnesses in criminal matters, and Featherstone would have been deeply pained if he had known where I was going. And yet I was on a quest for the truth and justice for Jackie, although she, also, would not have thought my journey really necessary. We arrived at Liverpool Street station after half an hour’s delay (Please collect all your hand baggage and thank you for flying British Rail), and I persuaded a taxi to take me to Cricklewood.

  When we stopped at the anonymous surburban house, I was glad to see a light on in a downstairs room. Freddy Jason came to the door when I rang the electric chime. He was wearing an old sweater and a pair of bedroom slippers. He led me into a room where a television set was booming, and I noticed a tray decorated with the remains of a pork pie, French bread and cheese, and a couple of bottles of Guinness.

  ‘Aren’t you afraid,’ I asked him, ‘of putting on weight?’

  ‘I told you. I don’t.’ He clicked the television set into silence.

  ‘How long can you keep it up, I wonder?’

  ‘Keep what up?’

  ‘Being a thin person.’

  He looked at me, the skinny, mousy ex-accountant and said, with real anxiety,

  ‘How’s the trial going? Jackie won’t let me near the place. Is it going well?’ He had a dry, impersonal voice like the click of a computer adding up an overdraft.

  ‘It’s going down the drain.’

  He sat down then. He seemed exhausted.

  ‘I warned her,’ he said. ‘I was afraid of that. What can I do?’

  ‘Do? Come and give evidence for her!’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Jason looked at me helplessly. ‘What can I say? I didn’t get to know Jackie until after Barney’s accident. I don’t think I’d be much help in the witness-box, do you?’

  ‘It depends,’ I said, ‘on what you mean by help.’

  ‘Well. Does Jackie want me to come?’

  ‘Jackie doesn’t know I’m asking you.’

  ‘Well, then. I can’t help.’

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Do you want your wife to do a life sentence in Holloway? For a murder she didn’t commit?’

  He looked deeply unhappy. A thin man who had become, however unwillingly, involved in a fat man’s death.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t want that.’

  ‘Then you’d better, come back on the Inter City to Norfolk. You might as well finish off your supper. I mean, you don’t have to worry, do you? About your weight.’

  When I got to the Court the next morning I found Featherstone and Mr Tonkin anxiously pacing the hall. I gave them what comfort I could.

  ‘Cheer up, old darlings. Things may not be as bad as you think. Her husband’s here. He’ll have to give evidence.’

  ‘Freddy Jason?’ Tonkin frowned.

  ‘What on earth can he do for us?’ Featherstone asked.

  ‘Well, he certainly can’t make things any worse. He can say he didn’t get to know Jackie until after the accident. At least we can scotch the idea that she pushed Barney out to marry another man.’

  ‘I suppose he could say that.’ Mr Tonkin sounded doubtful. ‘You think we need this evidence, Mr Rumpole?’

  ‘Oh yes. I’m sure we need it.’ I turned to my leader. ‘Featherstone. I have a certain experience in this profession. I did win the Penge Bungalow Murders alone and without a leader.’

  ‘So you’re fond of telling me.’

  ‘In any case, the junior is accorded the privilege of calling at least one witness in a serious case, with the permission of his learned leader, of course.’

  ‘You want to call Jason?’ In fact, Featherstone sounded extremely grateful. If the witness turned out a disaster, at least I should get the blame.

  ‘Would you leave him to me?’ I asked politely.

  ‘All right, Rumpole. You call him. If you think it’ll do the slightest good. At least you won’t be whispering instructi
ons to me the whole time.’

  When the Court had reassembled, and the Judge had been settled down on his seat, found his place in his notebook, been given a sharp, new pencil and put on his glasses, he looked at my leader encouragingly and said,

  ‘Yes, Mr Featherstone.’

  ‘My Lord,’ Featherstone said with a good deal of detachment, ‘my learned junior, Mr Rumpole, will call the next witness.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Rumpole?’ His Lordship switched his attention to my humble self.

  For the first and last time in the Shenstone-on-Sea murder trial, I staggered to my feet. The calm woman in the dock gave me a little smile of welcome.

  ‘Yes, my Lord,’ I said. ‘I will call the next witness. Call Frederick Jason.’

  ‘No!’ Jackie was no longer smiling. As the usher went out to fetch her husband I whispered to Tonkin to keep our client quiet and tell her that the evidence I was about to call was vital to her case. In fact, it was one of those rare defences which depended on nothing less than the truth.

  Tonkin was busy whispering to the lady in the dock when her pale and nervous second husband was brought into the Court and climbed into the witness-box. He took the oath very quietly.

  ‘I swear to God that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

  It was then that I asked the question which I had been waiting to put throughout the trial.

  ‘Is your name Barney Bateman?’

  The reactions were varied. The Judge looked shocked. Showing some tolerance towards an ageing junior who was undoubtedly past it, he said,

  ‘Haven’t you made a mistake, Mr Rumpole?’

  Featherstone felt it was his turn to whisper disapproving instructions and said,

  ‘Jason, Rumpole. His name’s Jason.’

  My client remained silent. I asked the question again.

  ‘I repeat. Is your name Barney Bateman?’ Then the witness looked, for the first time, at the prisoner with a sort of apology. She seemed, suddenly, much older and too tired to protest. I reflected that there is a strange thing about taking the oath, it sometimes makes people tell the truth. Anyway, we had at least found the corpse in the Shenstone murder. It was now speaking, with increasing liveliness, to the learned Judge.